Assessment of patients' perceptions towards embryo disposition after donation of embryos to a research biobank.

PURPOSE: To explore perceptions towards embryo disposition among patients donating excess embryos to a research biobank. METHODS: Cross-sectional study of survey responses collected as part of enrollment in a research biobank. Patients are asked questions regarding the difficulty of their disposition decision, their alternative disposition choice if donation to research was not available, quality of the counseling they received, and if additional counseling throughout their treatment would have been beneficial. Survey responses use 5-point Likert scales, with "1" being lowest/least and "5" being highest/most. RESULTS: A total of 157 men and 163 women enrolled in the biobank. Median scores for difficulty of disposition decision were 3 for females and 2 for males, and for quality of counseling, the median scores were 4 for females and 3 for males. Seventy percent of patients would have chosen to discard their excess embryos had donation to research not been an option. Statistical analyses showed no significant difference in responses based on variations in race, religion, sexual orientation, and infertility diagnoses. Concordance of responses within heterosexual couples was tested and found to be poor to moderate. CONCLUSIONS: Assessing patients' perceptions towards embryo disposition after donation of their excess embryos to a research biobank affords a unique perspective. The difficulty of the disposition decision, the tendency to discard embryos in the absence of a means for donation to research, and the poor agreement between heterosexual partners highlight the importance of donation to research as an accessible disposition option and the need for a personalized approach to counseling and consenting for embryo disposition.

Implementation of a comprehensive fertility biobanking initiative.

OBJECTIVE: To present the framework of Stanford Fertility and Reproductive Health's comprehensive reproductive biobanking initiatives and the results of the first year of recruitment. DESIGN: Technical description article. SETTING: Academic fertility center. PATIENT(S): Fertility patients >18 years of age. INTERVENTION(S): Enroll the patients interested in research in biobanking protocols. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): Patient recruitment and sample inventory from September 2020 to September 2021. RESULT(S): A total of 253 patients have enrolled in the Stanford Fertility and Reproductive Health biobanking initiatives since September 2020. The current inventory consists of 1,176 samples, including serums, plasmas, buffy coats, endometria, maternal deciduae, miscarriage chorionic villi, and human embryos (zygote, cleavage, and blastocyst stages). CONCLUSION(S): This biobanking initiative addresses a critical, unmet need in reproductive health research to make it possible for patients to donate excess embryos and gametes and preserves, for future research, valuable somatic and reproductive tissues that would otherwise be discarded. We present the framework of this biobanking initiative in order to support future efforts of establishing similar biorepositories.

Stage I-II diffuse large B-cell lymphoma treated with rituximab and chemotherapy with or without radiotherapy.

We set to identify prognostic factors in a retrospective cohort of consecutive patients with stage I-II diffuse large B-cell lymphoma treated with rituximab-chemotherapy with or without radiotherapy from 2001 through 2017 at our institution. We identified 143 patients with median follow-up of 7.7 years. The majority were male (59.4%), had stage II (53.1%), had stage-modified IPI 0-1 (smIPI, 58.1%), and had non-bulky disease (<7 cm, 68.5%). 99 patients (69.2%) received rituximab-chemotherapy followed by radiotherapy, and 44 patients (30.8%) received rituximab-chemotherapy alone. The 5-year progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were 81.2% and 88.9%, respectively. The 5-year PFS for those with smIPI 0-1 versus 2-4 was 89.5% versus 69.7%, respectively (P = 0.005). Bulky disease (≥7 cm) was associated with worse PFS and OS on univariable and multivariable analyses (P < 0.05). Patients with smIPI 0-1 without bulky disease have excellent outcomes. However, patients with smIPI 2-4 or bulky disease have a high risk of progression.